I’ve been meaning to write about this technological tool that I read about some time ago in the NY Times – typing expansion software.

The basic idea is that, for words, phrases, or sentences that you use frequently, you can enter brief prompts (hotkey scripts) that will then add in whatever word, phrase or sentence you choose to have it represent.  For example, with my hotkeys activated, if I type the letters “H” and “C” I get HollyCornblog.  The letters “f” and “f” net me fantasy football.  “D” and “C” bring up DaddyCornblog, while “D” and “C” and “D” yields Dick Cheney is a douchebag.

AutoHotkey is the free software that I have been experimenting with.  I’d like to have it all set up (and have plenty of practice with it) by the time March Madness rolls around.  (That was “M” “M” that I typed.)  Won’t it be nice to not have to plow through Connecticut and Tennessee over and over?  By the way, you don’t have to include the quotation marks when you type your script (I do, just so that I can keep it from inserting the verbiage).  Oh, and you can tell it to capitalize words or not, by how you type the letters.  For example, to get “By” capitalized at the start of that sentence back there, I used an upper rather than a lower case “b” in my script.

Does this sound interesting?  If there are words and/or phrases that you use a lot, I think you might find it a really cool tool.

I hope you have a great day!  (That was “H” “a””n””d”!)

JordanCornblog

PS  It’s also a great way to correct for typical typos – for example, I invariably type t-i-n-k then I mean t-h-i-n-k.  No – no problem – at least that’s that I think!